1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to generation and detection of specific waveforms, and more particularly to generation and detection of rogue waves in both optical and hydrodynamic applications.
2. Description of Related Art
Until very recently, rogue waves were thought to be the subject of myth or legend, rather than scientific reality. In the mid 1990s, however, freak waves proved very real when recorded for the first time by scientific measurements during an encounter at the Draupner oil platform in the North Sea. Although elusive and intrinsically very difficult to monitor because of their fleeting existences, satellite surveillance has recently confirmed that rogue waves roam the open oceans, occasionally encountering a ship or sea platform, sometimes with devastating results. It is now believed that a number of infamous maritime disasters were caused by encounters with rogue waves.
Recent observations have shown that the probability of encountering an extremely large rogue wave in the open ocean is much larger than expected from ordinary wave-amplitude statistics. Although considerable effort has been directed towards understanding the physics behind these mysterious and potentially destructive events, the complete picture remains uncertain. Furthermore, rogue waves have not yet been observed in other physical systems.
The unusual statistics of rogue waves represents one of their defining characteristics. Conventional models of ocean waves indicate that the probability of observing very large waves should diminish extremely rapidly with wave height, suggesting that the likelihood of observing even a single freak wave in hundreds of years should be essentially nonexistent. In reality, however, ocean waves appear to follow “L-shaped” statistics: most waves have small amplitudes, but extreme outliers also occur much more frequently than expected in ordinary (e.g., Gaussian or Rayleigh) wave statistics.
Although the physics behind rogue waves is still under investigation, observations indicate that rogue waves have unusually steep, solitary or tightly-grouped profiles, which appear like “walls of water”.
It is likely that more than one process can produce occasional extreme waves with small but non-negligible probability. Possible mechanisms that have been suggested to explain oceanic rogue waves include effects such as nonlinear focusing via modulation instability in one dimension and two-dimensional crossings, nonlinear spectral instability, focusing with caustic currents, and anomalous wind excitation. Nonlinear mechanisms have attracted particular attention because they are known to possess the requisite extreme sensitivity to initial conditions.
Supercontinuum generation has been explored in detail, and numerous commercial products are offered utilizing this concept. However, the concept of optical rogue waves and their connection to supercontinuum generation has not been previously described in the art.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is a method and system for applying weak probe radiation to stimulate and stabilize the supercontinuum generation process.
Another an object is a method and system for using stimulated supercontinuum generation or optical rogue waves to control a strong optical field with a weak optical field and to apply this concept to optical switching
Yet another object of the present invention is a method and system for intentionally creating hydrodynamic rogue waves. A further object is a method for collapsing or destroying extreme water waves through the application of weak perturbations with particular characteristics. An additional object is a method and system to predict the occurrence of rogue waves.
At least some of these objectives will be met in the following description.